Visual, auditory and somatosensory evoked responses in patients with cerebrovascular disorders.

A diagnostic evoked response battery, consisting of visual evoked responses to flashes and to a checkerboard pattern, auditory evoked responses to three different tones and somatosensory evoked responses to left, right and bilateral median nerve stimulation, was administered to 20 patients with strokes, and compared with 20 normal control subjects. Recordings were obtained at C3, C4, O1, O2, T3 and T4. Evoked responses were found to be of lower amplitudes and lower amplitudes and lower waveform symmetry (expressed by low correlation coefficients between left and right homologous areas) in the patients than in normal subjects. A discriminant equation with 17 variates was computed to separate the two groups. One patient (5%) and 2 (10%) normal subjects were misclassified. Comparison between patients with left or right lesions showed that somatosensory and auditory evoked responses were very useful for identification of the affected side. Quantitative study of evoked responses to different types of stimuli and sensory modalities provides a sensitive method for the evaluation of brain function in such patients. This technique gives higher accuracy than the routine EEG examination in terms of both the percentage of dectection and the accuracy of localization of the affected side.